If you are one of those people who thinks Email Marketing is useless then I have some news for you:

– According to a study by Mckinsey & Company E-mail is more successful at acquiring new clients than either Facebook or Twitter.
– You are 6x more likely to get a click-through from an email campaign than you are from a tweet. (Campaign Monitor).
– 42% of B2B organisations say email is one of their most effective lead generators for targeting new clients. (Circle Research).
– Companies sending over 100,000 emails each month see a 94% return on investment. (MECLabs).
– When it comes to purchases made as a result of receiving a marketing message, email has the highest conversion rate (66%), when compared to social, direct mail and more. (The DMA).
– One study showed that email is the second most used marketing tool (after a company website) for B2B companies. (eMarketer)

Need I say more? Now that we are on the same page, let me tell you how you can increase your email open rates by a significant margin.

1. Subject Line:

Concise & Crisp: This goes without saying, subject line is the most important aspect of your entire email campaign. It will decide whether you will stay comfortable in the priority inbox or get dumped in spam. Try to keep it short and crisp, and do not overload the user with excess information. Let me show you a great example:

Eater Boston: “Where to drink beer right now?”
Imagine getting this emailer on a friday evening. Will you be able to refrain yourself from opening it. I bet you, not.

Personalise: Add some human touch in your emails such as using your customers’ first names, their position etc. Everybody loves personal attention, yes even your customers. So, do not just introduce them with Dear Customer.

Avoid Spammy Words: Do you ever wonder why certain emails get delivered straight away to your inbox. There are certain words, in fact a lot of them, that you can avoid to escape from the spam folder. You can find them here.

2. Credible Sender:

The first thing that the user notices before opening an email is- who mailed them. Is it a known person – friend , family, colleague, acquaintance or some random company. An email coming from a company is blatantly marked as advertising, so you can improve your chances by using the name of a person at your firm. Even if your customers don’t know the person, they will still be curious enough to see who mailed them. An anonymous person will have a better chance to entice them into opening an email than a company.

3. Best time and day:

Timing is everything in marketing. Having said that, there is no perfect time and day as well. Irony, anyone? Well every business and it’s audience is different. You can start by experimenting with your timings to see which works best for you. A good number of hit and try will help you in reaching at the perfect timing. If you are still clueless, then let me tell you that a study by Experian demonstrated that the best days to send emailers is Saturday and Sunday, with the highest opening rates, and the ones sent on Tuesday and Thursday had the lowest opening rates. Also, the best time to send emailers on a weekday is 3pm to 6pm. So pick a number and take a dive.

4. Mobile Optimisation:

Yes, this is very important, because roughly 74% of smartphone users check emails on a mobile phone and mobile now represents 51% of all email opens. So, if your emails are not customised according to a mobile, you are in trouble. In order to improve your email opening rate, improve your email display on your mobile. It will not only lead to more open rates but also higher engagement among your customers.

Insider Tip: Divide every email campaign into three slots-

– First Slot: Email every one in your contact list.
– Second Slot: All those people who received your email but did not open it, mail them the same emailer, of course with a different subject line after a week. You will be surprised to see that 15-20% of these people will open the email the second time.
– Third Slot: Lastly, all those who clicked on your CTA but did not bought your product/service, mail them back, offering limited period discounts and offers. Some of them will be enticed to buy.

If you have more tips and hacks, let me know in the comment section, till then keep emailing.

Vinita Joshi is a Product Marketing Manager at Solomofy. She has worked with Samsung in the Product Marketing domain, and also dabbled her hands in entrepreneurship. When not working, you can find her digging a book or just lazing around.

hi, my thoughts about email marketing are little different.i feel one should not send mails again and again having the same content.it annoys the reader and eventually a reader may end up unsubscribing to your services. for rest points i agree to things you said.would also like to share that even i have tried experimenting with email timing and days.for me 5pm worked for weekdays and 1- 3 pm worked on weekends.

Thanks for your comment!
I completely agree, sending e-mails with the same content is pointless. One should send informative and engaging content to the reader to keep them hooked. As far as the frequency of sending emails is concerned, it again varies from business to business.